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Richard Taylor: I knew Alan Fletcher. I played correspondence chess with him ca 1979 (game drawn). He was an avuncular chap when I knew him who smoked a pipe. He was keen on classical music - he may have been a musician - and was friend of my fathers.

Richard Taylor: The way to solve these is to follow the rule "examine all checks and captures" as said by Reinfeld in his book "Winning Chess" which I read ca 1960 or so.

I only glanced at this one as I was more interested in whether the Alan Fletcher was THE Alan Fletcher of NZ who he was - he emigrated from England to NZ. He was about the same age as my father who emigrated (from London, England) before the 2 WW.

But I saw this combination idea in a Leonard Barden puzzle (he has one each week in the NZ Listener).

Richard Taylor: Alekhine wasn't good at combinations by "accident" he also played correspondence chess and it was clear from at least one comment from one of the games (I played over 3 books of his games, I wasn't as impressed by them as those of Tarrasch's, whose combinations and ending ideas in his best games seemed to me to be more ingenious); but in one comment he expresses surprise that he hadn't seen a particular combination type.

He had, like Capablanca who studied hundreds of endings, had also studied hundreds if not thousands of combination types. Hence this would have been played alsmost automatically.

When you are 10 you know not much but at 20 you think you are getting old. It is quite a good feeling (sometimes) then as you get to 30,40,50,60,70,80...in a mere blink of time...you know how absolutely brief say 100 years of life is.

Read 'The Dead' (a story by James Joyce in his 'The Dubliners' and watch the movie of it by John Huston his last film made as he was dying. It is possibly the best one also...

Richard Taylor: But the age thing is interesting as - in 2010 my rating went up 160 points. This was for various reasons but in fact in the years from 2006 to 2011 I played some of my best games of Chess beating a number of NZ best chess players.

I did terribly in 2011 to now and am about to play in the Major Open at the NZ Chess Congress (in 2011 I played for the first time at the age of 63 in the NZ Champs). In 2010 I had won a lot of A grade games partly because of some serious openings study, tactics practise and analysis of online games on YouTube etc

It seemed though that due to the disastrous results of 2011 I was a bit "downcast" and while I had winning or at least = positions in my games in the ACC (NZ's strongest Chess Club) A Grade Championship I was making inexplicable blunders. In one game I had a forced win against a player who is now 2300 rating and 9th in NZ (he is 16). Now in all my games I had good positions and blew them.

But the point is, I think I can be proud of keeping relatively mentally active and aware and healthy (despite the usual problems of age):

and the point of that is how others who are around my age will or can feel about being "old". I had quite disheartening results after 2011 (with some exceptions) and I did in fact stop playing at my club. I considered stopping competitive chess altogether but this year the Congress is near me as well as the Seniors.

So I can see how I go.

But all of us face aging and inevitable death. Sometimes that death is long drawn out and quite terrible. Sometimes it is quick: but it is inevitable. You are all getting older by the second. Compared to the age of the Universe, compared to eternity, if one can conceive of such a thing, your life is like the click of a finger or something in fact infinitely trasitory. Thus: you are dead. Be ready to be dead for a near infinite time. And if you are young, you are lucky if you get to my age, but you WILL suffer depletion of strength, you WILL get uglier, lose hair, eye acuity will decline, and nature or whatever has much more in store for you.

You can believe in a benevolent god of some kind if you wish but don't bet on it being true or if it is that the great thing in question gives a @#$% about you.

But that said, I am in many ways happier or as happy as ever, as I approach death - or to put it another way, in this "late" stage of my life I have many things that I am glad about and mostly I feel very happy.

Richard Taylor: <Domdaniel> Art thee of The Faith? !!
I used to say to this old(er) old chap at my chess club re ideas discussing his games "Be of the faith, X." [Not X actually but his name] when I suggested a "wild" line or idea in post mortems. Talking of Technology (or not as the case may be) this fellow not only has only old chess books, and no computer, but he doesn't have a telephone!

Richard Taylor: Interesting this "six degrees thing" as I am linked to Alekhine. In the 60s i made a silly joke to Rodney Phillips, who had had a draw with an IM or GM at the time who had beaten Tal (who was then or about then the World Champion): so my silly schoolboy joke was that I, who had managed a draw or beaten someone Philips had drawn with, was thus better than the World Chess Champion!

Jonathan Sarfati: <Richard Taylor:> I see you knew a lot of the strong Auckland players of an earlier generation. I never played Alan Fletcher, but he did beat Russell Dive when he was up-and-coming. The tragic Rodney Phillips was before my time, but a number of the previous generation of Wellington players reminisced about him.

Richard Taylor: Yes. I played Alan. Also he knew my father. He was a rather avuncular fellow who liked to smoke a pipe and lived in Mangere East.

I met Rodney but he was older. I played in a simul against him. He of course was much better than I. I recall noting the way he took the pieces off with one movement which I liked!

I really don't know what happened about Rodney he had great potential and his father Tom Phillips was a force in the admin of chess. Not sure how strong a player he was. I also met a lot of the "characters". Bury who was once NZ School Champ used to be a mysterious person who, at the then Auckland Chess Club would set up problems. He did this with such a style that I feared to even attempt to solve them! Ralph Hart also recalls some of those fellows such as Arian Lenz not that these players were or were not strong but they were keen. Chess was also a kind of haven for many. Fred Foulds, ex NZ Champion used to turn up to the Dominion Road Chess Club. He was quite a comic man in some ways and used to move one along by moving himself beside (me). I didn't see him play much but one of his games is in a book of short brilliancies by Heidenfeld....

Jonathan Sarfati: <Richard Taylor:> I knew a lot of the Wellington players a few decades older, but there are not many left now unfortunately. Sarapu's books are a connection with NZ Chess of the 50s to the 90s. His first book that came out in 1978 was the first time I realized how strong these older players were at their peak. But the current generation were born after he passed. I think <Benzol> has been submitting a lot of the old NZ games.

Jonathan Sarfati: <Richard Taylor:> I suppose a lot of Kiwis are linked to Alekhine, Capablanca, and Lasker by only three degrees: we have played Sarapu who beat Bogolyubov who won games from Lasker and Alekhine, but not Capa. Sarapu also played Spassky (draw), Fischer, and Kasparov.

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